Modern society has based and continues to base a good part of its development on the exploitation of fossil fuels . For several years it has been clear that the impact on the environment of petroleum derivatives is very strong and the continuous emission of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is one of the anthropogenic causes of global warming. By burning fossil fuels, large quantities of carbon dioxide are released into the environment , which over the millennia had been trapped in the form of oil and natural gas underground.

I carbon neutral fuels are therefore currently the holy grail for transportation , especially that airplane , which is responsible for a good chunk of CO2 emissions . Scientists study the issue of fuel production from CO2 captured from the atmosphere for years, but finally now there seems to be a very promising way for this methodology, which many consider the only viable way to make aviation carbon-neutral, given that currently the development of electric aircraft sees in low density of energy per unit weight of the batteries a limit that is difficult to overcome.

Potassium-Iron-Manganese catalysts to convert C 02 in kerosene

The process is that of hydrogenation of CO2 to obtain more complex molecules of hydrocarbons, such as alkanes, cycloalkanes and olefins, as well as by-products such as alcohols and acids. There are direct and indirect methods for the hydrogenation process. The most promising are those who see the use of ferrous-based catalysts and this is where the news comes.

The discovery of scientists from the University of Oxford, reported in Nature, resides in a production method of a class of Potassium-Iron-Manganese catalysts ( Fe ?? Mn ?? K ) through the process Organic-Combustion Method ( OCM ). On the one hand, the production of the catalysts is quite simple and can be carried out in a solution of citric acid, on the other hand the catalysts themselves have shown good yields and good selectivity in the CO2 hydrogenation process, under conditions of quite pressure and temperature normal for traditional industrial processes.

Scientists have obtained conversion of CO2 into compounds usable as fuel equal to 38, 2% , against yields of 28, 6% in the reactions carried out with its catalysts class produced with traditional methods. Scientists also found better selectivity in the production of C8 hydrocarbons ?? C 02 (where the number indicates the length of the chain of carbon atoms), those used as Jet Fuel .

At the moment the reactions have been completed in the laboratory on small quantities , but scientists estimate they can scale to larger quantities more easily than previous methods.

These studies on conversion of carbon dioxide into fuel could finally pave the way for a circular economy also in the world of transport, in particular those by air , allowing to decrease effectively and l ‘environmental footprint of greenhouse gas emissions . To offset CO2 emissions, there has been a lot of talk about carbon dioxide trapping technologies , but find a way to reuse it directly and lead (in the long run of course) to a ‘ zero balance sheet ‘in terms of the release of carbon dioxide into the environment could be an important step.

Of course, these are processes that require energy and it is essential that the production of electricity and the hydrogen necessary for the hydrogenation process are also zero-emission so that the balance can stand. But the road traced is certainly interesting.